Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for foreign language study.
Description of the Related Art
In general, the most effective method for foreign language conversation education is that a native speaker teacher and a student have a one-to-one talk with each other. However, since such a method requires a lot of cost, it is difficult for many students to receive the benefits of the education.
Recently, much research has been actively conducted on a voice-based natural language conversation system using an artificial intelligence natural language processing technology capable of replacing a native speaker teacher. However, most of existing voice recognition devices has been developed for native speakers. Therefore, when the voice recognition devices are used for voice recognition of non-native speakers, they exhibit very low recognition performance.
Because of the technical limitation of voice recognition, it is actually impossible for a learner to freely enter a speech. Therefore, most of current conversation systems for foreign language study are generally utilized in a limited manner based on a scenario. According to the foreign language learning theory, however, it is known that learners test and learn their foreign language skill through responses of the others to speeches entered by the learners. Therefore, most of the existing conversation systems which always offers the same response based on a scenario may not provide a satisfactory learning effect.